SirSmUgly Posted July 29 Author Share Posted July 29 10 hours ago, zendragon said: Remember when Molly was a heel in WWE for having a Phat Ass and now 20 years later and Bayley is a babyface for the same thing? how times change Yeah, "you have a big ass" was supposed to be an insult, I guess? Not as far as I'm concerned. 7 hours ago, Curt McGirt said: From Wiki: So they are at the bottom rung of former backyarders. There are probably some CZW guys missing from the list who are better. Good pull. I won't ever try to argue that ICP is better than anyone on that list, but I'd certainly prefer to watch them ham it up in the ring and do high spots than watch anyone other than the Hardys on that list, personally. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twiztor Posted July 29 Share Posted July 29 22 hours ago, SirSmUgly said: Show #201 – 9 August 1999 Buff Bagwell comes to the ring. Buff’s opponent is Scott Norton, who I guess just showed back up from Japan and couldn’t get anyone from the former B-Team to answer his calls. I get a kick out of the unseen side story that Norton just goes along with whatever is happening without really getting too keyed up about it. Norton’s gimmick in my head is the dude who leaves for Japan and comes back to a weirder and very changed WCW, but just keeps trucking along without asking any questions. Vicious & Delicious EXPLODE~! i really like your take for Norton's outlook. Sadly, he only has a few more appearances before disappearing from WCW at the end of September. Norton was always a pleasant surprise when he showed up on Nitro. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted July 29 Author Share Posted July 29 13 minutes ago, twiztor said: Vicious & Delicious EXPLODE~! i really like your take for Norton's outlook. Sadly, he only has a few more appearances before disappearing from WCW at the end of September. Norton was always a pleasant surprise when he showed up on Nitro. Scott Norton should ideally be in Rick Steiner's spot, but I assume that his money for touring Japan was incredibly lucrative or something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twiztor Posted July 29 Share Posted July 29 6 minutes ago, SirSmUgly said: Scott Norton should ideally be in Rick Steiner's spot, but I assume that his money for touring Japan was incredibly lucrative or something. my head canon is that any American that makes frequent tours of Japan dislikes their home life and wants to get as far away, as often as possible. no, i don't have any examples to prove this, nor am i interested in any that disprove this. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted July 29 Author Share Posted July 29 It's got to be money, wanting to get away, being charmed by life traveling in Japan, or some combo of the three. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stefanie Sparkleface Posted July 29 Share Posted July 29 2 hours ago, SirSmUgly said: It's got to be money, wanting to get away, being charmed by life traveling in Japan, or some combo of the three. In the 1980s and 1990s, you could make a comparable living in terms of take home pay and be home way, way more. Guys like Stan Hansen and the Road Warriors were making $10,000 a week to go over 20-25 weeks a year, plus in those days their travel expenses were covered. If you can make $200,000 working 20 weeks a year and not have the travel expenses, or make $400,000 a year but have to be on the road literally the entire year and pay your own hotel/rental car/travel to work for WCW or the WWF, Japan balances out better. That also doesn't mention that you can pick up other gigs in between your tours, like guys like Norton did with WCW. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zendragon Posted July 29 Share Posted July 29 Norton to me is #1 guy who gets lost in the shuffle of that giant, bloated late 90's WCW roster Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted July 29 Share Posted July 29 15 hours ago, SirSmUgly said: I'd certainly prefer to watch them ham it up in the ring and do high spots than watch anyone other than the Hardys on that list, personally. Good point. Regardless of talent, not a fan of... well, anyone on there, either. This conversation just reminds me of Shaggy getting powerbombed and sliding off the bus. Too bad it wasn't Violent J. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted July 29 Author Share Posted July 29 2 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said: Good point. Regardless of talent, not a fan of... well, anyone on there, either. This conversation just reminds me of Shaggy getting powerbombed and sliding off the bus. Too bad it wasn't Violent J. I think I got Shaggy and J mixed up last week. Dammit. I'm sorry to hear that one of the ICP went off the rails; they always seemed like a fairly positive group with a goofy theme. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted July 29 Share Posted July 29 J's the fat one (who got skinny recently). Anyway, I'll put in spoilers what he sucks for Spoiler Apparently the dude likes way younger women, even according to Shaggy and I think his own wife, and they think it's gross. Which is pretty fucked up to be coming from people that close to you. This isn't some #metoo stuff either, it's just public knowledge. I don't remember how I came across it -- probably the Discord. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted July 29 Author Share Posted July 29 Thunder Interlude – show number seventy-five – 12 August 1999 "The WCW Gang mostly coasts into Road Wild, but also lets Randy Savage get kinda weird with it" Thunder starts with a video of wrestlers on choppers and an eclectic group of people at Sturgis…I do not like anything about Road Wild’s aesthetic and am glad to be leaving it behind after 1999... Rick Steiner comes to the ring, does some bad promo work, threatens Goldberg, and generally stinks…Spyder, who hasn’t been seen on Nitro, Thunder, or PPV since the lWo died, is getting a TV title shot for reasons that I can’t imagine…Ricky kills the guy in very dull fashion…They wander around in an obligatory ringside bore-fest for a minute or two…Spyder doesn’t back into bulldog position, so Steiner hits a diving lariat instead and locks on that shitty armbar he does for the submission… So many recaps: Hogan goes back to Hulk from Hollywood…Chris Benoit gets a title opportunity and sees it through…Sid is Sid, but he also wants to be the Millennium Man… Disorderly Conduct comes to the ring to face Sid in a handicap match…Sid is already there, but you can’t really call it a jobber entrance…DC discusses who should start first on the floor, so Sid hops out there and attacks both of them…Sid hits a Shinonomake Slam on Tom…He then powerbombs Mean Mike for three…Sid hands out a post-match chokeslam besides…Sid talks to the camera about how much ass he’s going to kick, addressing Goldberg directly…It’s pretty solid work, actually…Sid comes off with the utmost intensity… Recap: The Dead Pool focuses their attacks on the future Filthy Animals… Warmed-over hype video: They play the fucking video from the start again, and we’re only 28 minutes into the show!...Lazy-ass WCW… Hype video: Harlem Heat is back… Recap: Harlem Heat and the Jersey Triad feud on Nitro… Recap: Curt Hennig yammers on and on about Chad Brock…I guess the new “Good Ol’ Boys” song was a response to Brock being on Nitro…It helps that this was excised from the replay on the Network, as I actually didn’t see this…Brock and Hennig face off after Brock’s song…He and Hennig get tangled up…The Revolution comes out to back up Brock and hold off the WTR… That new song of theirs is basically the country version of the Three Count theme song…Same format, same type of lyrics…Just country instead of boy band pop…This is a taped Thunder, so the WTR comes out to “Rap is Cr*p”…I get a tiny kick out of censoring the word “cr*p” when I write that title out, I must admit…Dean Malenko and Shane Douglas tag up against Barry Windham and Bobby Duncum Jr….The babyfaces work Duncum over…Douglas covers for one off a double-back elbow…Douglas rolls under a Duncum big boot, dropkicks Duncum’s knee, and hits a neck snap…Duncum is able to back Douglas into the WTR corner, and that allows Barry to get shots in as we go to break… We come back to Malenko dominating Duncum…He ends up as FIP soon after, though…I would have liked to see a fuller series of transitions…Malenko hits a desperation sunset flip for two, but is isolated in the WTR corner once again…Duncum eventually whiffs on a corner charge, and Malenko hits a hot tag…Douglas rolls the WTR…He hits a double-noggin knocker…This is just awkward shit…Douglas looks terrible…It’s almost like he and Duncum briefly forgot how to wrestle…Douglas hits a terrible Thesz Press and the match breaks down…Duncum swings his bullrope, but Douglas ducks the shot and hits a Pittsburgh Plunge for three…The rest of the WTR hops in the ring and embarks upon a beatdown…Saturn runs down to help out, but eats a cowbell shot and gets beaten up and hogtied…This went from “inoffensive” to “actually sucked kinda bad” after coming back from break… Blipmo: DDP is hyping his match at Road Wild…No, excuse me, he’s hyping Hogan/Nash…Whoops… Promo: Berlyn is finally going to be here…Then, Berlyn is going to not be here after Jim Duggan is done being bad at getting the guy over… Review: The Hogan/Nash three-year-long ordeal video that I am entirely sick of by now… Recap: Randy Savage is TOO HOT FOR TV on Nitro…Using crazy language like that…”Eccentric,” hmmph…I can’t believe they let him say that or put that smut on air…Wow, and now he said the word “cr*p”…Disgusting… Here’s Randy Savage in street clothes to cut another promo…No, wait, he’s wrestling Evan Karagias, maybe…Savage grabs a mic…He declares that this match is a tune-up, teases a reveal of the driver of the Hummer…They let Karagias talk for some reason…Karagias is not a fan of how Savage treated Mona…He thinks that Savage should have more respect for women…He respectfully offers his concerns to Savage…Savage agrees to placate him by letting her into the Miss Madness 2000 competition… Savage asks Karagias who will win between him and Rodman…Karagias is like, You, duh…Not out of fear, mind you; he just thinks Savage is a legend…Savage offers Karagias daps and uses that as a chance to cheap shot him…Mona comes out to root Karagias on while he gets his ass kicked…Maybe it helped because Karagias dodges a corner charge and hits a dropkick after a long period of taking an ass-kicking…Karagias lands a trio of punches…Savage bails and then grabs Mona…Karagias takes a running dive over Mona as she dodges and spears Savage…Larry Z. opines that Karagias has a crush on Mona even though Karagias said that Mona "[is] like a sister to me"...Ew, no...Now that Madusa, on the other hand, Karagias sees her a bit differently...Wait a minute, is this all a set-up so that Karagias can help Madusa beat Mona at Road Wild?... Karagias tosses Savage into the post, but that seems to wake Savage up, and he immediately fires back with a kick and a throat draping across the guardrail…Savage puts Karagias in the ring, slams him, and drops a Savage Elbow that looks like it really yammed the guy…Savage covers for two, pulls Karagias up, takes his belt off, whips him with it, and goes back up…Mona jumps in to try and wave Savage off…Savage drops another elbow anyway…Mona trips while backing up from Savage…Savage goes after Mona, and ref Johnny Boone tries to jump on Savage’s back…Savage piledrives Boone, but it gives Mona a chance to stumble away…Savage tosses the ref to the floor, then drops a third Savage Elbow on Karagias…Who did that poor bastard piss off?...Savage grabs a mic and counts his own pinfall to a pop…That was certainly a segment…I’m not sure if I liked it or not, but I was certainly attentive all the way through… Recap: The Nitro six-man tag main event… Too many recaps, too much Bobby Duncum Jr. vs. Shane Douglas, not enough good matches…OWWWWW… 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twiztor Posted July 30 Share Posted July 30 15 hours ago, Curt McGirt said: J's the fat one (who got skinny recently). Anyway, I'll put in spoilers what he sucks for Hide contents Apparently the dude likes way younger women, even according to Shaggy and I think his own wife, and they think it's gross. Which is pretty fucked up to be coming from people that close to you. This isn't some #metoo stuff either, it's just public knowledge. I don't remember how I came across it -- probably the Discord. yeah, this is the safest thing i can post up in agreement with the spoilered stuff. This is Violent J and his girlfriend at the time (no clue if they're still together). And i haven't watched this, but it certainly gives me the ICK. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_qncHXZZX4&t=56s&pp=ygUVdmlvbGVudCBqIHNhcmFoIHJvc3Np Spoiler but there's also some pretty heavy accusations that he likes 'em WAY younger. i've seen convo that his instagram (?) page likes/follows a LOT of very young girls. And other stuff that's outright stated by former friends and ex-girlfriends. and that's not to mention that he's quite obviously got some sort of drug addiction going on. ICP hasn't toured together for about 2 years and Shaggy has said that he is clean and sober and won't be around people that are heavy users. ICP is still doing some spot shows, but have spent zero time on the road or in the studio together. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twiztor Posted July 30 Share Posted July 30 (edited) 20 hours ago, SirSmUgly said: Thunder Interlude – show number seventy-five – 12 August 1999 Spyder, who hasn’t been seen on Nitro, Thunder, or PPV since the lWo died, is getting a TV title shot for reasons that I can’t imagine… Spyder was last seen in a losing effort to Jim Duggan on the 8/7 WCW SN. Before that, he lost to La Parka on the 7/17 SN episode. He can next be seen on the 9/25 SN, again in a losing effort, this one to Disco Inferno. Those three, plus this Thunder appearance, make up his entire WCW in-ring career. He doesn't seem to have a Cagematch profile. Smelly, have you seen Roddy Piper's "Ghost Tape"? this is the tape he allegedly sent to both Bischoff and Russo sometime in 2000 (?). It was his idea on how to save WCW. If you like the ravings of a lunatic, this is the video for you! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKQJNBbycdo Edited July 30 by twiztor adding Piper stuff 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted July 30 Author Share Posted July 30 Road Wild ’99 notes: It’s the final Road Wild PPV! Awesome! There’s only one more August PPV after this one. I haven’t looked ahead, but I surmise that it must be New Blood Rising, as there’s no other slot for that PPV in 2000 that isn’t already taken. If I’m right, then I’m pretty staggered that the New Blood angle is still going on as late as August of 2000. Then again, Hogan only left the company after BatB 2000, so I guess it makes sense that they’d need to wrap it up in the next month or two after that. They do a little hypin’ and recappin’, and that leads into our opener: A six-man tag that pits the Dead Pool (Vampiro and the ICP) against Rey Misterio Jr., Eddy Guerrero, and Billy Kidman. If this show were in front of an arena full of wrestling fans in some Midwestern town, there would be a ton more noise than there is now. I didn’t realize when Raven got tossed into a dumpster that he might as well have gone home and stayed there until he got his release. WCW sucks ass for not deploying this guy better in general, and definitely for not deploying him better after he came back from his surgery earlier in the year. The babyfaces control things early. Kidman reels off an early Sky High, then tags in Eddy for a tope con hilo. Rey follows with a guillotine legdrop just for kicks. Vampiro does barely land on his feet out of a monkey flip, then hits a kick. Eddy gets dumped outside, where the ICP stomps him out. Shaggy dumps Eddy in the ring, where he is isolated in the Dead Pool corner. Violent J tags in and lands a jawbreaker and some chops; Shaggy tags in and has a really nice vertical suplex in his arsenal, actually. Weak forearms, though. Eddy ranas his way out of an attack from Vampiro, but can’t get a hot tag because J jumps in and headbutts him. Vampiro reasserts control, and the beatdown continues. The ICP hit a double-vertical, but Eddy crotches Shaggy up top and hits a superplex. Some vendor behind the ring is selling butterfly fries. I don’t know what those are, but I want them. With a side of ranch. Eddy gets a hot tag to Rey. Rey hits an Asai moonsault on J, but is pulled off the pinfall. He tries to run, but Raven actually does something for once. He trips Rey and drags him outside the ring, then launches him into the steps. Vampiro hops out and lands a Nail in the Coffin on the ring mats, then continues to toss Rey around at ringside. Rey eventually gets dumped back into the ring to catch an okay-ish beatdown. This match has been generally okay, but being outside in the heat once again has these workers moving more slowly and less crisply than they usually do. Rey takes a powerbomb and a shinbreaker and some other stuff. Shaggy lands a pretty nice powerslam. He should never do strikes and only do slams and suplexes, is what I’ve decided. Rey finally gets a hot tag and the match breaks down. Who will win this melee? Well, after everyone else spills from the ring, Kidman lands an SSP on Shaggy for three, so the babyfaces are the ones to prevail. That was cromulent. After a short review of the feud, Kanyon and Bam Bam Bigelow come to the ring to defend the WCW World Tag Team Championships against Harlem Heat. I can’t imagine that WCW is putting the belts on Harlem Heat. Page isn’t here, and when Kanyon grabs the mic, he immediately sucks a whole lot less at talking. He accuses the crowd of being too poor to afford cable television and then trying to explain his typical pre-match question. So, get this, this crowd of bikers actually has what I think is the first decent crowd response I’ve seen during this watch through. A guy near the hot mic in the crowd yells WE CAN’T HEAR YOU; immediately after, a bunch of engines rev over Kanyon’s talking, and the despondent Triad member walks around the ring angrily. Then the same guy near the hot mic hits a Nelson Muntz-style HA HA. It cracked me up. That’s the first time all the bike revving was actually a useful crowd response. Kanyon doesn’t bother to ask the question after that response. Here comes Harlem Heat. If you ever wanted to see a shot of Harley-riding Boomers raise the roof, I advise you to hop on Peacock and pull up this show. Stevie and Booker immediately jump in the ring and clear it of the Triad. Commentary has a useful conversation about Booker and Stevie not having ring rust, but having tag rust from not tagging together much lately. The Triad regroups, but they still don’t have much for Harlem Heat; after Stevie clears out Kanyon and slams Bigelow, they end up on the floor again, looking perturbed. Kanyon re-enters the ring and demands that Booker tag in. That goes poorly for Kanyon, who eats a mudhole stompin’. Kanyon does manage a back elbow that gives him room to get in some further offense, but he tries to run the ropes with Booker and walks right into a dropkick for two. Stevie and Bam Bam tag in again. They have a beefy boy standoff, but Stevie lands a clothesline after being shot into the ropes. Bam Bam headbutts Stevie in the abdomen as Stevie tries to follow up, and that allows the Triad to take control. Stevie sells some offense, including that Bam Bam chinlock that STINKS, man, is it an awful looking chinlock. He’s only the FIP for a couple of minutes. Bam Bam hits a kneelift that looks way better than his chinlock, then gets two on a headbutt. Kanyon tags back in and nearly loses control of the match, then definitely loses it after Stevie trips him and catapults Kanyon into Bam Bam on a double-team move. Booker gets the hot tag and lands a roundhouse kick on Kanyon for two. He tries an axe kick, but Bigelow yanks down the top rope as Booker bounces against it. Bam Bam tosses Book into the guardrail while Tenay does a great job of talking about how Booker can telegraph that move to a downed opponent in a singles match, but doing it in a tag match allows the illegal man to react when he sees it. That is some really good commentatin’ on Tenay’s part. Kanyon takes back over, gets two on an elevated Rocker Dropper, and tries one more that earns him a counter powerbomb. Both men crawl over and tag their partners. Bam Bam gets there early and barges into Booker, knocking him outside the ring. That leaves Stevie to try and endure a two-on-one attack. Make it three-on-one as Page runs out and tries to help. That goes poorly, though, as Stevie tosses Bam Bam into Page, and Booker follows up by getting on the top rope and drilling Bam Bam with a missile dropkick. Stevie covers for three, and, huh, Harlem Heat are the new tag champs. I didn’t expect that, gonna be honest! I guess considering the timeline of WCW booking leadership, Russo is at fault for the feud over the letter “T,” that utter dolt. The WTR faces three-fourths of the Revolution. They come down to “Rap is Cr*p” at Sturgis, just to drive me up a fucking wall at least one more time. Whoa, can you imagine the alternate universe where WCW ran WTR/NLS at the final Road Wild? They might have started a riot out here. Saturn, Shane Douglas, and Dean Malenko are participating for the Revolution; the WTR put forth Curt Hennig, Barry Windham, and Bobby Duncum Jr. in response. Saturn challenges the WTR on the mic, and the faces turn back that challenge when the three legal WTR members take them up on it. What follows is another okay trios tag. The Revolution dominates early as Barry struggles with Saturn. Douglas tags in and wanders into the wrong corner, though, which allows the WTR to turn the tide. Not for too long, though; Douglas and Saturn regain control until Barry lands a nice counter-lariat to put Saturn in trouble. However, Bobby Duncum eventually tags in, and of course Saturn hits a belly-to-belly and tags to Malenko. The Revolution work Duncum over in their corner. Douglas tags in and tries a Pittsburgh Plunge, so Hennig gets in the ring and busts that up, then manages to get Douglas isolated outside the ring. Of course, that hurts him when Douglas atomic posts him; Jeff Jarrett did this to X-Pac at SummerSlam ’98 and it looked and sounded painful. This spot did not replicate that effect, but I like the idea. Douglas tries to follow up back in the ring with a top rope move, but Duncum distracts him, and that allows Hennig to grab him and press him to the mat. Douglas is the FIP; Barry throws another nice lariat in there. Kendall cheats on the outside a bit. Eventually, Douglas dodges a Duncum corner charge and hot tags to Saturn. The match breaks down soon after; Malenko locks Hennig in a Texas Cloverleaf, but Kendall comes in and clocks Malenko with the cowbell. Douglas snatches the cowbell and clocks Kendall, then clears out Barry; Saturn hops in the ring and gets a very un-agile Duncum up for a DVD that gets three. Good night for the babyfaces so far! That match was the epitome of unexceptional. Buff Bagwell faces off with the Cat (w/Sonny Onoo) next. It’s the first singles match of the night, and maybe the card placement isn’t ideal. This show started off with three straight tag matches that the babyfaces all won. Maybe tossing a singles match in there, especially a heel victory, would have made sense. Then again, maybe all the babyfaces will win to frame a Hogan loss in the main event. Who knows. The Cat and Onoo come down in biker vests, and Onoo is doing a great job of wearing his. Miller is wearing gloves with a stars ‘n bars design, which I think is probably upsetting the fine folks in the crowd here in Sturgis. The Cat tries to talk, but everyone revs their motors. In a pretty good spot, Buff comes down and tries to talk, but the Cat snatches his mic and gets a few words in before the engines rev again. They do it again; this is pretty solid comedy spot work from these two. Buff finally talks while the Cat wanders around the ring: “You’re not a crowd favorite if you know what I mean.” Yeah, I think I know what you mean, Buff. The Cat shows his stars ‘n bars gloves to the crowd, confused about why the crowd is so hostile. OK, this was solid pre-match stuff. The Cat decided to do a sociological experiment, bless him. Of course, then they gotta wrestle. The Cat is legitimately a fun comedy spot worker at this point, but Buff is mostly useless. Miller gets the early advantage; the crowd fires up a PUSSYCAT chant. Boy, they are more into this match than they have been anything else by far. Buff gets his swats in and the Cat bails, signals that Buff somehow pulled his hair, and then makes fun of a portly dude at ringside – MEAN. The Cat enduring-slash-trolling the crowd is delightful, I have to tell you. It’s certainly not for everyone, but I’m getting a kick out of this match. The Cat does some chops and a foot choke, but Buff hops behind Cat on a rope run, lands a couple of dropkicks, and throws punches in the corner. He gets to nine before the Cat blatantly hits a low blow in front of Scott Dickinson and follows up with a superkick. Miller points out a fan at ringside to Dickinson so Onoo can choke Buff; Miller covers for two. Kick, choke, cheat, choke, chinlock. I mean, I cannot argue to you that this is a good match. It stinks, if you just list out the moves. But Miller working this crowd is pretty danged awesome. The Cat rakes Buff’s eye, but gets reversed on a vertical suplex. Onoo tries to get involved, but Buff reverses a whip and sends the Cat into the briefcase that Onoo is holding up on the apron, then rolls him up for three as he stumbles backward. Miller attacks after the match; Onoo does Buff’s dance. This wasn’t good enough to make the Charming Uniquities list, but I’ll have to figure out how to get Miller’s performance in this match on a list regarding how fun and aware of the context of this show that it was. Chris Benoit defends the United States Championship against Diamond Dallas Page in a reversal of their meetings in early 1998. I didn’t think they had very good matches then, but they’re definitely both improved a year later and have considerably better chemistry with one another as of the summer of 1999. This is a no disqualification match, so I assume the Revolution and Triad will get involved. Page does some mic work that starts out okay and then gets worse with the insults about Benoit’s mom. Irritating in the wrong way, bub. Irritating in the wrong way. I shouldn’t feel like I don’t want to see Page on screen, but this Triad run has me going from excited to see him in April 1999 to rolling my eyes in August 1999. Page talks shit to Benoit, so Benoit punts him in the balls and makes with the stomps and punches and chops. Page tries to slip a spinning powerbomb in there, but Benoit punches out of it and then hits a baseball slide. They fight on the raised apron, and when Benoit tries to jump off it and onto Page, Page hits an inverted atomic drop and we have an obligatory ringside brawl. The match re-enters the ring, where Page lands a belly-to-belly for two. He stomps Benoit in the gut and slams him face-first into the mat out of a fireman’s carry; this latter move gets two. Page lands his signature gutbuster and continues his offensive assault, generally. Benoit slips a rollup for two in there, but is countered, has to kick out at two himself, and gets met with a lariat when he gets to his feet. Page focuses most of his attack on Benoit’s abdomen in this run of offense; he shuts down a Benoit comeback with a spinebuster for two. Page tries to leverage his weight to keep Benoit pinned in that position, but Benoit fights up and eventually uses his legs to get a rollup for two, though again Page is up first and lands another lariat for another two count. DDP corners Charles Robinson and complains about his count. Benoit flips out of another Page move; his backslide is blocked, so he disengages and hits a jawbreaker instead. Benoit goes up, but Page is quickly up and knocks Benoit into Tree of Woe position. Page has no respect for authority; he slaps Robinson and takes his belt, then whips Benoit with it. I almost questioned Page being able to do this; I forgot it was no DQ for a second. It hasn’t been worked that way until now. Page tries a belt-leveraged pin and hits some whips and chokes with the belt. He even hangs Benoit over his back with the belt, which I’m sure gave Benoit a few ideas about how to shoot replicate that spot with a weight bench in a few years. Anyway, Benoit explodes back, gets the belt, whips Page, and hits three rolling Germans, bridging each time and getting two counts each time. Benoit goes up top, but Kanyon runs out and shoves him into a Page uranage for two. Page tries to whip Benoit into Kanyon, but is reversed; Benoit rolls him up for two when he staggers backward. So, we get a split screen of the Revolution sitting around in the back watching the Triad run a three-on-one – Bam Bam comes down and lands a shitty splash – but they just let Benoit fight all three guys off instead of going down there and, you know, evening the odds. With friends like those, who needs enemies? Benoit digs himself out of a jam by knocking Bam Bam into Page’s jewels and drills a flying headbutt on Page for three. Yikes, that match wasn’t very engaging or good, and I don’t love the booking concept of “Benoit won it by himself” when it’s no DQ and there’s no reason that the Revolution shouldn’t at least go down and make sure that it’s a one-on-one bout. It’s a little too “the babyfaces are as dumb as they are noble” for me. Some guy gives an ugly bike away to some fan. American Iron Horse is dead, and WCW is also dead, so this custom Iron Horse Road Wild bike with the ugly WCW logo on it might be worth a pretty penny in 2024. Sting and Sid go at it, though Sid’s really been setting up for a long-term feud with Goldberg in his last few promos. Sid throws a few punches to start that clearly don’t make any contact. I like Sting, and I like Sid, but this match is a zero to me. I also don’t think either guy can really eat a clean loss right now, but that’s me. Sting has been booked into the ground, and Sid needs to be built for Goldberg. Sting hits a couple of Stinger Splashes and then tosses Sid over the guardrail before walking him around at ringside and bashing him into stuff. Sting misses another Stinger Splash back in the ring; Sid takes over with a kick and slows the pace of the match to a considerable degree. He lands a powerslam for two and then yanks at Sting’s lips against the ropes. Sid continues a deliberate assault targeted at Sting’s back; he scores two on a rib breaker and yeah, this match is just here. Sting and Sid needed to be on the card, and this is how they got there. Sid dumps Sting to the floor and drapes Sting across the rail, then dumps Stinger back in the ring for a chinlock. Sting fights up, crashes into Sid on a rope run, and does his spot where he topples over and headbutts his opponent in the junk. Uh oh, Sid is up first and goes up top – don’t do that – but Sting catches him and presses him to the mat. Sting tries to run, but Sid trips him and stops all that. Sting and Sid get to their feet; Sting wins a punch, but leaps into double knees on a splash attempt. Sid gets two on the resultant cover. Sid hits Snake Eyes on Sting, but tries to out-strike Sting and loses; still, Sting tries to up the tempo and runs into a big boot. Sid goes up again – don’t do that, I said! – but Sting catches him again and hits a superplex. Sid pops right up from that so that he can wander to the corner and eat two Stinger Splashes. Sting tries a third Stinger Splash, but jumps into a goozle and a chokeslam that gets three. Yikes. That wasn’t a good match, and Sting losing that to build Sid for Goldberg was a mistake considering that Sting is the only guy other than Goldberg who means anything in this main event scene. Goldberg hopefully gives very little offense to that bum Rick Steiner next. Goldberg dominates early. Rick Steiner wanders around for a bit after bailing. Steiner gets back in the ring and shoves Mickey Jay into Goldberg as a distraction, then goes after the knee brace that Goldberg is wearing. Steiner wraps the brace on his arm and hits Goldberg with it. Steiner does some plodding, brace-assisted offense. Man, Rick’s around until the end, being boring as all hell. He gets two on a belly-to-belly, and was this match no DQ, too? Ah hell, doesn’t matter. Goldberg takes entirely too much offense from Rick fucking Steiner. You know, DDP fucked Goldberg up really badly on Nitro a few months ago; having them connect for another match here would have been a billion times better. Anyway, Goldberg comes back and it’s spear, jackhammer, SPLAT. This stunk, and it ain’t Goldberg’s fault. Dennis Rodman faces Randy Savage in a match that has had quite the build, let me tell you! Rodman comes to the ring in a fantastic robe. Anyway, this is, I believe, Rodman’s last match or appearance in this company, which is the end of an era, kinda. He and Kevin Greene really started that whole “guest wrestlers from other entertainment areas” thing, and though Greene is about five hundred million times better at this, Rodman jumping off the sinking ship because it stopped paying out is an auspicious sign. Rodman hops out of the ring and grabs a mic and asks Savage, and I quote, “Where’s my bitch?” He tosses the mic to Savage, who replies, and I quote, “Tonight, you’re my bitch, and everybody out here, I invite you to fight for sloppy seconds.” Then, they get in the ring, kiss passionately, and slow fuck one another while the fellas in the crowd pop boners. No, wait, they just have a tepid brawl. Rodman jumps Savage and hits him with the mic, then tosses him around at ringside. After that obligatory ringside brawl, Rodman gets back in the ring, tosses Savage into the corner, and hits him with a back elbow as he comes out of the corner. Short-arm clothesline, elbow drop, huh, side Russian leg sweep? Savage kicks out at two; Rodman shoves Billy Silverman around for what actually was a slow count. Rodman decks Silverman and drops a crisp elbow on him as well. Can you imagine if Rodman cared about pro wrestling? He might actually have been decent. The Worm wanders back over to Savage, who digs a couple of fingers into his eyes. Savage chokes Rodman, and it dawns on me that Rodman is physically a superior worker to Randy Savage in 1999. That is bleak. I need to sit quietly with this. Savage does some chokes, so I have time to think. Savage draws Rodman’s throat across the top rope, goes outside, hits a photog at ringside, and takes his camera to use as a weapon; the camera shot gets two from Mickey Jay, who has come down to take over. Savage doesn’t like that count, so he punches Jay and dumps him from the ring. OK, this makes me laugh: Scott Dickinson jogs to the ring to ref, and Savage just clocks him as he steps through the ropes. Rodman is able to back body drop Savage to the floor, but Savage trips Rodman when he comes over and drags him to the mats. Savage gouges and chokes and tosses Rodman over the guardrail. The crowd ejects Rodman with some force while Savage wanders back over to send Rodman up the aisle. Ah, Sturgis: Some lady yells MACHO MAN, YOU SUCK, and some other lady, or maybe the same lady, yells RODMAN, STOP ACTING LIKE A PUSSSSSSY, LET’S GO. Is this match the most Road Wild match ever? It might be. They fight behind the set, and Savage goes over to a port-a-potty, yanks some dude out of it, and tosses Rodman into it. Savage locks the door and tips the port-a-potty over. Fecal matter leaks out of it because Savage thinks shit spots are high-larious in this last run of his. Rodman makes it out and tosses Savage into the side of a production truck, then goes back toward the ring, where Savage jumps him on the ramp. This match is entirely too long, and while I appreciate the effort to make this less boring than almost everything else on the show, I’ve had enough. Thankfully, we seem to be coming to the end. George comes down after Rodman accidentally bumps Johnny Boone. Nick Patrick is ref number five, and he’s the guy who counts the three after George taps Rodman in the sack and Savage punches Rodman with a chain that he got from George. That was not any good, but at least it was somewhat interesting. Though, look, maybe only one match on the card should have the wrestlers pushing around and abusing refs for maximum value, you know? The Hulkster comes to the ring to defend his title and his career against Kevin Nash. Buffer is here to introduce the combatants. I think he did okay, but honestly, I kinda zoned out there for a bit. I could quibble with calling him Hollywood Hulk Hogan, but nah, it’s fine. I don’t think Hogan has delineated very well between Hollywood Hogan and Hulk Hogan yet, himself. Hulk can’t win his first two lockups with Nash, so he does this hokey thing where he spits in his hands and fires up, then wins the third lockup. I’m just out on ‘80s babyface Hogan. Everything he does is a huge eye roll. Yelling OH, OH MY GOD while in a headlock and shit. This guy sucks. The only babyface Hogan I recognize is 2002 Hogan and his “elite athlete on the decline” gimmick that was frankly amazing. He could still light you up on any given night, but those nights got fewer and farther between as bigger and badder (and younger) athletes stepped up to him. Kurt Angle making babyface Hogan tap to the ankle lock is the pro wrestling equivalent of Iverson crossing up MJ. The reason that I had time to go into that tangent is because this match stinks. Nash works an endless headlock, eats a back suplex, bails, etc. They have a test of strength, and I bet you can guess how this spot goes without me describing it. I mean, this fucking blows, and it’s not on Nash (this time). Just hurry up and get to the Hulk Up so we can go to the finish. These tired old spots aren’t redeemed by me being genuinely unsure of who is going to win this thing. Hogan has a comeback after dodging a well-telegraphed framed elbow from Nash, stupid wind-up punch and everything. Nash stops all that and continues a slow-paced attack, complete with a side slam. He sends Hogan outside the ring so they can do some spots out there even though at least half the matches have done the same “throw a guy into a thing at ringside” spots. Fewer than four minutes in the show! Great! Let’s move it along! Nash signals for a Jackknife, but does punches in the corner instead. Three minutes! Nash hits a Jackknife. Hogan kicks out, obviously. Hulk Up. Two minutes! YOUUUUU, let’s move it along. Big boot, legdrop, Hogan wins. *sigh*. So I guess Nash’s career is over now, but he’s right back on TV bitching about how he wasn’t allowed to book the shows properly in a handful of Thunder shows, so whatever. Thank goodness that Road Wild is over as a PPV. This shows sucks and has always sucked. It’s a boneheaded idea from a guy with no creative ability who’s about to lose his position. Rest in piss, you won’t be missed, Road Wild. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted July 30 Author Share Posted July 30 8 hours ago, twiztor said: Spyder was last seen in a losing effort to Jim Duggan on the 8/7 WCW SN. Before that, he lost to La Parka on the 7/17 SN episode. He can next be seen on the 9/25 SN, again in a losing effort, this one to Disco Inferno. Those three, plus this Thunder appearance, make up his entire WCW in-ring career. He doesn't seem to have a Cagematch profile. I did in fact look him up at Cagematch and the Internet Wrestling Database, but got an entry for a totally different Spyder. Thanks for looking that one up. Quote Smelly, have you seen Roddy Piper's "Ghost Tape"? this is the tape he allegedly sent to both Bischoff and Russo sometime in 2000 (?). It was his idea on how to save WCW. If you like the ravings of a lunatic, this is the video for you! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKQJNBbycdo I heard about this tape, but have never seen it. Roddy Piper just seems exhausting to be around. Like, even him explaining the point of the ghost tape beforehand was just too much. I lost it when that doofus had on a Scream mask, though. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted July 31 Author Share Posted July 31 Show #202 – 16 August 1999 “The one that shows why retiring the 'heavyweight busts up a match between two midcarders' trope would be a good idea” How long is this Kevin Nash “retirement” going to stick? Four weeks? Six? Eight max, right? I also think it’s wild that they built for two years off-and-on to an eventual Nash/Hogan match, and it ended up being a boring twelve-minute ‘80s Hogan Special. Bless you, WCW booking committee. Hey, Mona never did wrestle Madusa at Road Wild, now that I think about it. Sid is 55-0 in this latest run somehow. Don’t ask me; Tony S. said it. Sid’s facing Hulk Hogan for the big gold belt tonight. It’s Lash LeRoux! Perhaps we shall see a fabled HOT CRUISERWEIGHT OPENER? Well, Juventud Guerrera is his opponent, so this is promising. They just have to make it through this match without Sid or Randy Savage busting up the proceedings. Lash LeRoux is the heel, I guess, because the ladies like Juvi, and Lash gets boos except for from the one fan waving the GIVE LASH A PUSH sign. Lash is pretty new to wrestling in general, so he’s a bit awkward on some of these transitions and counters, but he’s got some personality, so that covers for things. Lash hits does his dancing splits and throws a punch, but Juvi comes right back with ten punches in the corner. Lash tries to powerbomb him out of the corner, which gets countered into a pinning combo that gets countered, and so on, and so on, and so on, until eventually FUCK, it’s Sid. Fuck you, WCW. I do get a kick out of the person holding a SID VICIOUS NEEDS A HUG sign up while Sid powerbombs LeRoux, though. Sid does his Millennium Man shtick. He promises to keep spoiling matches until Hogan hands him the title. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh brother. It’s a Lord Steven Regal (w/Dave Taylor) sighting; he’s wrestling Scotty Riggs. Well, we’ll see. If Sid comes back out here, I’m just going to resign myself to this Nitro being bullshit. Regal makes Riggs trade and counter holds early, so yeah, I like it when Regal makes his opponent work his style. The opening exchange is pretty fun. Of course it is; I actually wanted to see more after that exchange, but Sid comes back out here and tosses Regal, then kills off Riggs. Boy, WCW is trying to make me hate seeing Sid on screen. That’s not going to happen, but WCW is going to try anyway. See, he even cuts a good promo into the corner after he destroys Riggs with a powerbomb, and since he’s a deluded heel, he counts running up on another match and beating down the guys in it as wins to help him pass Goldberg’s undefeated record. Even you can’t ruin Sid, 1999 WCW. You shitheads. I like that WCW-brand baseball jersey that Bobby Heenan’s wearing at ringside, ugly logo and all. Ernest Miller has become one of the guys who I enjoy seeing out here at this point. Hopefully, he’s done with this black hole of a feud with Buff Bagwell. Give him a feud partner who can do comedy that is actually funny instead. His opponent is a blonde-haired Mike Enos. The Cat promises to beat Enos in four minutes or fewer, then runs into Enos and gets slammed. The Cat tries a shoulderblock. NOPE. Enos lands a powerslam and then stalks the Cat, who scrambles to the corner for safety. The cat begs, pleads, gets Enos distracted, and throws a terrible chop to the chest that I think is supposed to be a throat thrust. He tries to press his advantage and gets powerbombed, basically. Enos pretty much destroys the poor Cat, so Sonny Onoo gets on the apron. Enos presses Onoo over his head, and the Cat gets to his feet, circles behind Enos, and kicks the guy in the back of his neck. Enos drops Onoo; the Cat covers for three. Miller and Onoo harass David Penzer for the time, which he reports as being under four minutes, so the Cat dances with a goofy joy that has me loving this guy even if he kinda still stinks at the actual wrestling part of pro wrestling. Good for Miller for beating Enos before Sid could get back out there, too. Promo: Berlyn is an elite German athlete, the type that you would send to the Olympics in Berlin to race Jesse Owens as a way to prove the superiority of Deutschland. Sid beats up a couple of luchadores in the back. Low-key, WCW’s misuse of La Parka is one of the bigger sins of the Bischoff et al. era. I put the TV title on him in WCW/nWo revenge the other night, which is the least they could have done in real life for at least a couple of months. Sid powerbombs Parka in the back, but he makes sure to drop him on a huge bag of popcorn. I swear, if they send Sid out here to beat up a) Rey Misterio Jr., who should be a huge star for them and b) the WCW Cruiserweight Champion, which was an important title even a year ago as I remember, I might just have to give up on this Nitro. In case you want to know what year it is, Lodi (at ringside to cheer on Rey’s opponent Lenny Lane) is holding a BLAIR WITCH FEARS LENNY + LODI sign. I think the faux-umentary on the Blair Witch that showed on Comedy Central was the coolest thing about Blair Witch. Rey tosses Lenny into Lodi, but gets front slammed for two. Rey then gets right back to dominating, flipping onto Lodi outside the ring when Lenny ducks down on the apron. Rey and Lodi blatantly set up to catch Lenny on quite a nice dive, actually, but Rey’s back in the ring and hits a Bronco Buster, then celebrates when…Sid fucking gets on the apron and chokeslams him, then beats the shit out of all three men in the ring. Sting runs down for the save while Sid considers powerbombing Rey again. Here comes Hulk Hogan right behind him, and Sid decides that discretion is the better part of valor. Sid grabs a mic and demands the belt from Hogan; Gene Okerlund has trundled down to the ring and holds the mic for Hogan’s response. Hogan promises to train, say his prayers, and “kick [Sid’s] ass.” Whoa, it’s like ‘80s Hogan, but slightly edgy! How exciting! Hogan says that once he finishes Sid off tonight, he wants to give Sting a title shot next Nitro in Las Vegas. Well, thanks for letting me know how tonight’s gonna go. Hogan repats the train, say prayers, kick ass line to Sting, and uh, that gets a muted reaction and some low boos. You’re third in the babyface pecking order at best, Hogan. At best. I do have some hope, though. Savage is a six-time World champ, but by my count, he’s only had five reigns, so he’s got to be getting his hands on it between now and November. This Hogan title reign shouldn’t last long. Plus at some point, we get Hogan having vaguely heard of the Yavapai peoples of the Southwest and screaming about YAPAPI/APPLE PIE strap matches against Flair, and that’s when he’s in the red-and-yellow, so that should be pretty dumb and enjoyable (and hopefully not for the big gold). Raven is still here, escorting the Dead Pool down to the ring. There are a couple of Juggalos in the crowd. One person holds up an INSANE CLOWN POSSE sign with all the “S” letters stylized in that pointed-S style that we all used to draw in class as kids in the ‘90s. You know exactly what I’m talking about if you were in elementary or middle school in the ‘90s. You immediately visualized that letter "S" in your mind, I am certain of it. The Insane Clown Posse wrestles The Public Enemy, which sounds like the type of car crash that I’m here to witness. TPE comes out wearing Colorado Gold Kings jerseys; they were a minor-league hockey team that moved to Colorado Springs from Fairbanks. That’s a deep pull, fellas. Anyway, an ICP chant breaks out after the clowns are initially cleared from the ring. They huddle up with Vampiro and Raven to plan, and in a funny little aside, Vampiro lectures the cameraman: Don’t come over here and try to peek in on our huddles unless a world-class reporter like Bobby Heenan sends you. Have you ever heard a Canadian person calmly lecture someone who has made a social transgression? I have, and Vampiro sounded exactly like that person. I just assume it’s part of the Canadian cultural handbook. This match isn’t very good because the watchability of an ICP match is dependent on two things: their opponent quality and how much jibber jabber gets inserted into the match layout. TPE’s not any good in 1999, and there’s not enough gaga in this match. We just get stuff like Violent J hitting a weak clothesline so that Johnny Grunge can tumble to ringside in slow motion. Just get to the stacked table spot outside the ring. As I started to type that sentence, the crowd started chanting TABLES, so I’m not alone. In fact, TPE is like, OK, fine, I guess we should do the table spot, and they hit Shaggy with an assisted cannonball through the tables. J and Grunge are left, and we are now at the part of the match that I have to tell you more about. So, Grunge pancakes J in the corner, then backs up for another run, but first Johnny Boone has to do a spot that the camera decides to film in a close-up, thereby breaking the illusion. He wanders over, yells YOU’RE NOT THE LEGAL MAN at J, and starts counting him out while side-eyeing someone outside the ring to give him a signal - maybe the time, maybe a sense of when Grunge is about to impact him for the resulting ref bump. Vampiro jumps in, kicks Grunge, and hits him with a loose Nail in the Coffin, and then puts J on top of Grunge. Boone, who was super-concerned about J being the illegal man, counts three, I guess because getting his guts churned made him way less concerned about it. That whole sequence might as well have screamed THIS IS FAKE, DON’T TAKE THIS FINISH OR PRO WRESTLING IN GENERAL SERIOUSLY, and it’s because of the tight shot on Boone that allowed us to pick up what he was saying and see him prepping for the spot. Sharmell is VERY cute tonight, my goodness. There’s a Nitro Girls routine on right now, if you couldn’t guess. Gene Okerlund interviews a non-Hogan, non-Savage subject: Harlem Heat, who are tag champs in late 1999 somehow. I did not expect that at all. Babyface Stevie Ray is such a weird thing to see, slapping hands and saying they brought the tag belts back TO THE PEOPLE and stuff. And then he becomes everyone’s hilarious uncle on commentary for awhile there at the end, which is amazing. I can’t wait. Booker T. thanks DDP for bringing Harlem Heat back together and making them the EIGHT-TIME, EIGHT-TIME, etc., tag champs, and OH MY GOODNESS, it is only today that I have made the connection that Booker’s FIVE-TIME, FIVE-TIME catchphrase is ripped directly from Page! Holy fuck, how did I not realize that until now?! Stevie says that he’s done with the B-Team because those four fruit booties couldn’t get the job done. Stevie is about family and plans to watch his brother’s back forever. Harlem Heat promises to be fighting champs while Stevie mugs the camera; they send out a challenge to anyone for a bout tonight, I think. Harlem Heat has basically been around WCW for long enough, and there has been enough turnover in the roster, that the crowds basically see them as “true” WCW guys. These SummerSlam promos have an annoying overproduced country-ish song on them that fucking SUCKS. Is this how it’s going to be the whole month? The Berlyn promo plays again. I have missed Alex Wright on television. Tony S. calls Berlyn a “brand new athlete,” but they all saw him in the crowd and were like, YO, THAT’S ALEX WRIGHT a few weeks back. Oh, WCW. “Rockhouse” hits; the rest of the B-Team step into the aisle. I assume that they were not pleased about Stevie saying they had butts made of fruit. Crush shaved his face. It looks weird. I guess he was prepping to be the KISS Demon and for the nightly face paintings. These fellas talk for longer than they need to, but the point is that they are incredulous that Stevie just left the nWo and would like a tag title shot. Crush yanks the mic away and says that he and Virgil will take on Harlem Heat, but the other three B-Teamers stomp him out and rip off his shirt, so I guess he’s out! Great! FORM KRONIK ALREADY, WCW. Gene Okerlund spearheads another interview in the ring, this time with Billy Kidman. Oof, they’re going to give Kidman a looksee to discern his promo ability. Spoiler alert: He has none. Gene’s like THE LADIES LOVE YOU, HUH, and they do, man, they really do. Kidman basically says that he and Rey Misterio Jr., Eddy Guerrero, and Konnan have decided that they are friends and are in a group together. They’re Filthy Animals who “party and chase the chicks,” you see. Okerlund and Kidman banter about the Nitro Girls PPV and Kidman asserts that of all the very good-looking and charming Nitro Girls, and no disrespect to a man in DDP who helped him in the pro wrestling business, but Kimberly is the good-lookingest and charmingest of them all. I’m not going to be too gross about this, but I do have a tier list. No one is under A-tier, so it’s not a mean tier list. I’ll refrain, though, as it’s impolite and I get that most people don't want to be the subject of a tier list of any type for understandable reasons. DDP storms down, and you know, I kinda get it. Savage and Scott Steiner going after Kimberly has probably got him on tilt at this point. Well, and that time she left him for Johnny B. Badd and then, uh, the Booty Man. That last one will kill any man's ego and then hide it in a shallow grave in the forest. Page thinks that Kidman was disrespectful and decides to spell RESPECT for Kidman. Unlike Aretha, he only makes it through three letters before slapping Kidman and hitting him with a uranage. Page grabs Okerlund’s mic and calls for a ref, and this is now a match, I guess. Page lands a number of impact moves, but can’t get three, so he goes to chokes. Back to standing, Kidman tries to make a comeback, but Page tosses him out of a springboard bulldog attempt and hits a spinning powerbomb, which shows you how elite Page is. Kidman couldn’t even counter that one. Page covers for two, but pulls Kidman up to continue the punishment. Kidman does stick a boot up on a Page corner charge, but tries to follow up and runs into a spinebuster for one, two, no, Page pulls him up. As a heel yanking a fighting babyface up early, Page is playing with pro wrestling trope fire. He signals for a Diamond Cutter and tries to hit it from TKO position, but Kidman slips out and rolls Page up for three. Page is irate and clocks Kidman, then hits the ref with a Diamond Cutter. Kidman leaps onto Page’s back, but Page shrugs him off and hits a Diamond Cutter, then puts him in Tree of Woe position. As he did with Chris Benoit at Road Wild, he takes the ref’s belt and whips Kidman. Kimberly comes down to try and stop Page as Page chokes Kidman with the belt. Kimberly’s like What the fuck, dude, Kidman’s your buddy, and she gets Page to back off. Page does angrily mumble something about Kidman mentioning Kimberly being like “that Steiner crap,” if I heard him correctly. If we’re getting a Jersey Triad/Filthy Animals feud, I’m into the idea. The matches could be good. I’m hoping Page turns down the goofiness and turns up the paranoid anger, as that’s when he’s at his best. Disco Inferno walks out to the top of the ramp holding a mic and signals for his theme to cut. He bigs himself up and claims that the Filthy Animals want him to hang out with them. Uh, in Ron Burgundy’s voice: I don’t believe you. He claims that he’s number one and the best, and he’s the star to bring WCW into the future. Chris Benoit cuts in on him and says that Disco and his big mouth have stumbled into the middle of a revolution, then challenges him to a match right now. Lots of name-dropping for new stables there. Disco promises Benoit a tushy-kicking, then walks to the ring and fares poorly. Benoit chops the hell out of this dude and lands a back elbow for two. He drills Disco with a back suplex for another two. Back body drop, mudhole stomping, and snot rocket – Tony S. is listing off Benoit’s nicknames at the time and makes me laugh: “The Wolverine, the Crippler, the…Man Full of Snot.” Back to the match: Benoit tries a flash Crippler Crossface, but Disco bails and then gets control by hanging Benoit’s throat over the ropes when Benoit comes over to pursue. Disco lands a series of offensive moves for two counts at double-speed, but when he feels he has control, he does a little dancing and lands a second-rope elbow for another two. Disco hits a side Russian for another two, then goes to a chinlock. Benoit works to his feet quickly and shoots Disco into the ropes, but Disco lands an elbow to the base of the neck on a Benoit duck-down and gets two. He tosses Benoit to the floor and sends him into the ring stairs, then into the guardrail. Back in the ring, Disco whips Benoit, gets caught with a sunset flip for two, but pops back up and hits a lariat for two of his own. Disco backs Benoit into the corner and tries to throw strikes, which is bad when you’re wrestling a chop machine like Benoit. Disco tries to quell Benoit’s fervor with a back suplex, but Benoit flips out and hits a release German. There’s a standing ten count; both men get to their feet and Benoit lands a loud chop that sends Disco into the corner. Disco comes out trying to land a boot to the chest, but Benoit hits rolling verticals instead and then goes up with Disco wayyyyyyy the hell across the ring. He lands a flying headbutt anyway; it gets three. Heck of a television match! It becomes more apparent every show that the single biggest reason that Chris Benoit stood out to the plugged-in wrestling fans at this time is that WCW is mostly a mess, but he keeps trucking along having good matches almost no matter what. Barry Windham (w/brother Kendall, Bobby Duncum Jr.) heads to the ring to take a beating from Goldberg. “Crush ‘Em” needs some sort of musical hook, a signifier that Goldberg is on his way. The drums at the start of the classic Goldberg theme get me hyped. This song doesn’t have that. I appreciate that the lyrics of this song are perfect for Goldberg, but the whole of it just doesn’t work for me. As Goldberg comes to the ring, it occurs to me that there is a ton of money in a Goldberg/Hulk Hogan rematch. I assume it never happens because no one wants to book Goldberg to lay down for Hogan and Hogan doesn’t want to lay down for Goldberg again, but that’s way more interesting to me than Sting/Hogan at this point. The challenge of booking Goldberg is keeping him away from the world title even though he’s nigh indestructible. Goldberg mows Barry down with a spear, Jackhammer, SPLAT in about thirty seconds to a huge pop. Harlem Heat is back out to the ring to face Horace Hogan and Scott Norton (w/Virgil). Wait, no, Virgil is in the ring, so I guess it’s a non-title handicap match, which is what Tony S. informs us. Bobby Heenan follows up by asserting that the B-Teamers need this win and the belts, though. I don’t know, man, I don’t know. Stevie tries to press Virgil, who is dead weight. Norton tags in and the match improves immediately. Stevie hits a couple of lariats and then combines with Booker on a back elbow that gets two, but Booker ends up as FIP soon after that, though only for a couple minutes. He comes back with an axe kick and a Spinaroonie on his own, though he is distracted by Vincent and is caught from behind by Horace. Booker comes back on his own again and hits a flying forearm for two. Stevie tags back in, lands a side slam on Horace, and sticks him with a big boot. Stevie goes to the ropes, but Norton sticks out an arm and clubs him; Stevie stumbles forward into a Horace DDT and is now the actual FIP in this thing. Norton lands a series of headbutts that are actually pretty cool, lands a jumping one and covers for two, and backs Booker away before Booker can break the pinfall. I mean, they really dropped the ball on U.S. Champ/gatekeeper Scott Norton. I’ll say one more time that if you swap his position with Rick Steiner's, the TV is much more watchable. Norton looks like a legit beast here; he even goes for a powerbomb on Stevie, when Crush runs in and clocks him, then punches out the B-Team while Nick Patrick just chills out and watches, fuck calling for a DQ like some kind of chump referee would. Stevie and Booker capitalize with a missile dropkick and a cover, but what the fuck was up with the layout of this match? Harlem Heat look bad and the match only got Crush and Norton over. Here's Rick Steiner. Bummer. Oh no, he’s defending the WCW Television Championship against Brian Knobbs (w/Jimmy Hart). Yuck. They really ran almost every secondary title they had into the ground with the shitty booking and dumb angles. Rick Steiner alone is responsible for ruining two separate titles in the span of a year. This match is so dull, such a zero, that I choose not to waste words on most of it. Punching, choking, you know the drill. Let’s just go to the finish: Knobbs and Hart get their wires crossed on a chain attack, and Steiner waits for a blown-up Knobbs to wobble backward for a diving bulldog. 1987 was a long time ago; Steiner looks washed as hell. And Knobbs, my goodness. The fellas at commentary talk about Rodman and Savage having a match that, while not good, was engaging and just ridiculous enough that I think it has a bad rep as some sort of wrestlecrap. Don’t get me wrong, though: It wasn’t worth going out of your way to watch on YouTube or anything like that. They show a chunk of it, the part with the yelling lady included, and unbleeped to boot, so we can see the port-a-potty spot. Bam Bam Bigelow is out here alone. If he didn’t talk about being part of the Jersey Triad into the camera, I would wonder if the Jersey Triad was through. Page was out here doing his own thing, and there’s no Kanyon anywhere around. Bigelow’s in a match with Saturn, who also comes out alone because he’s apparently a dumb, but noble babyface. Bam Bam calls the ref over before the lock up, but that’s only as a diversion. He boots a distracted Saturn and lands a shoulderblock. One headbutt scores, but Bam Bam whiffs on a second; he recovers with a clothesline as Saturn tries to build an advantage. Bam Bam charges Saturn, but Saturn pulls the rope down and Bam Bam spills outside. Here is where I’d like to point out a well-known, but still irritating problem with how WCW produces commentary. Saturn hops onto the apron and hits a lovely Asai moonsault. Tony S. is in the middle of talking about Dusty Rhodes signing Hogan/Sting, and stops so that Heenan can say with zero enthusiasm in his voice, “What a dangerous move” before basically responding, Yeah, but back to more important matters. I feel like – and this is a feel, not a fact – Lawler and Ross made everything going on in front of them, no matter how goofy it was, come off as important. That’s a big part of why people remember so many WWF midcarders from that time fondly. Back in the ring, Bigelow and Saturn continue to have a solid match. Bam Bam kills a sunset flip, but misses his sit-out splash. Saturn goes up, but Bammer catches him and they fight over a potential superplex that ends when Bam Bam just gives up and tosses Saturn from the top. Bam Bam looks ascendant; he even locks on a chinlock that doesn’t look like complete ass cheeks. Good for him! Saturn fights up from that chinlock, but runs himself into a kneelift. Bam Bam chokes Saturn, but is very casual about it, so Saturn gets up and fires off punches. Poor Bam Bam; the spirit is willing, but the body is older and all beaten up. He tries a standing dropkick and barely gets his boots into Saturn’s lower abdomen. You’re not in Japan and this isn’t 1990, buddy. I’m sorry. Time comes for us all. Bigelow runs into a Saturn boot in the corner; Saturn hits punches in the corner, but Bigelow shoves him away and into ref Johnny Boone. Saturn lands a suplex, but Kanyon runs down and eventually shoves Saturn off the top rope and into Greetings from Asbury Park position. Shane Douglas runs down and shoves Kanyon off the top into Saturn; Saturn topples onto Bigelow for three. Kanyon quickly dispatches of Douglas by draping his throat over the top rope and commences to help Bigelow attack Saturn until the rest of the Revolution runs down to back them off. This was longer than it needed to be, but it was ultimately perfectly fine. Sid has what I’m pretty sure is a dubbed theme – oh yeah, that’s definitely dubbed – so I guess someone went through and figured that maybe it was safer to just go ahead and pop this generic track in for legal purposes. The Hulkster is over as a babyface in Colorado Springs, which makes sense, knowing Colorado Springs as I do. Let’s get this farce over and done with and move on to another Hogan/Sting match that I don’t want. Now, looking ahead to that match, I am fairly certain that Sting turns heel in 1999, and we’re almost through the year, so if I'm right, it's coming up. I also notice that Lex Luger was around for a bit, but then left television again. I hazily remember Sting turning heel, and hold on for a second, wasn't it because he didn’t trust Hogan’s face turn? Wasn’t Luger tied up with all that? I vaguely remember Sting and Luger being maybe the only two guys in the company who were like, Hogan is lying, he’s still a snake. That suddenly occurred to me as I started writing the ‘Let’s get this farce over and done with” sentence. It was also more interesting to ponder than Hogan hopping up from a Sid legdrop after Sid’s earl dominance. This guy is unwatchable. I can’t say enough about how much I hate his stupid-ass act. Like Rick Steiner’s match, this match has an obvious cadence, and the finish is really the only important thing about it. Sid gets a chair, there’s a nervehold, you know, that sort of stuff. Sid hits a chokeslam, stalls on the pin, and it’s Hulk Up, finger point, YOUUUUUU, big boot, leg drop, and Rick Steiner comes in before the ref can count to one; Sting comes down for the save as the crowd pelts the ring with bottles and cups; Hogan covers Rick Steiner for three (?!?!?!) so that there’s a finish for the crowd, but Sid can claim to be unbeaten. LOLOLOL, fucking stupid. Hulk hugs the Stinger and says I LOVE YOU, STING. Maybe not next week, though. Tomorrow might be a challenging day to finish a review, which is a shame as I really want to get to the next Nitro and see if my hunch w/r/t Sting is correct. Maybe I can squeeze Thunder in late tonight and facilitate that process. Anyway, this show did not treat its cruiserweights nicely, and booking Rey like that is a massive negative, but otherwise, this was another wrestling-packed show that was mostly watchable, even if there were only really two good matches. It definitely gets quite a few demerits for sending Sid out there to spoil matches for the first half-hour, though. 1.75 out of 5 Stinger Splashes. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zendragon Posted July 31 Share Posted July 31 yes I did picture the S in my head, Imagine if WCW had decided to capitalize on the Hispanic audience they had and used Thunder to do something like an English language Festivel De Lucha 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twiztor Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 On 7/31/2024 at 12:34 PM, SirSmUgly said: Show #202 – 16 August 1999 Sid is 55-0 in this latest run somehow. Don’t ask me; Tony S. said it. Sid’s facing Hulk Hogan for the big gold belt tonight. I think the faux-umentary on the Blair Witch that showed on Comedy Central was the coolest thing about Blair Witch. Here is where I’d like to point out a well-known, but still irritating problem with how WCW produces commentary. Saturn hops onto the apron and hits a lovely Asai moonsault. Tony S. is in the middle of talking about Dusty Rhodes signing Hogan/Sting, and stops so that Heenan can say with zero enthusiasm in his voice, “What a dangerous move” before basically responding, Yeah, but back to more important matters. I feel like – and this is a feel, not a fact – Lawler and Ross made everything going on in front of them, no matter how goofy it was, come off as important. That’s a big part of why people remember so many WWF midcarders from that time fondly. Let’s get this farce over and done with and move on to another Hogan/Sting match that I don’t want. Now, looking ahead to that match, I am fairly certain that Sting turns heel in 1999, and we’re almost through the year, so if I'm right, it's coming up. I also notice that Lex Luger was around for a bit, but then left television again. I hazily remember Sting turning heel, and hold on for a second, wasn't it because he didn’t trust Hogan’s face turn? Wasn’t Luger tied up with all that? I vaguely remember Sting and Luger being maybe the only two guys in the company who were like, Hogan is lying, he’s still a snake. That suddenly occurred to me as I started writing the ‘Let’s get this farce over and done with” sentence. not that this really needed said, but obviously Sid is not really 55-0. counting only TV/PPV matches, Sid is 7-1. the 1 loss is via DQ. Not counting this Nitro's non-finish, he also has two bouts that ended in No Contest. i refuse to acknowledge him interfering in matches as "wins", but even if you did, there's no chance of getting to 55. i've always hated the Blair Witch Project movie. total ass. Excellent way to break down WCW's commentary issue (one of them, at least). It usually gets shorthanded to something like "all the commentators would talk about is the nWo", which is also mainly true, but you explained it more fully and gave it more gravitas. oh man, i had completely forgotten about the whole scenario that plays out from what you remember. I look forward to reading you reliving it 25 years later. Well, just a few more weeks of Bischoff, then the weird between land, and then Russo. Good Luck! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted August 1 Author Share Posted August 1 59 minutes ago, twiztor said: not that this really needed said, but obviously Sid is not really 55-0. counting only TV/PPV matches, Sid is 7-1. the 1 loss is via DQ. Not counting this Nitro's non-finish, he also has two bouts that ended in No Contest. i refuse to acknowledge him interfering in matches as "wins", but even if you did, there's no chance of getting to 55. As a side note, even though it didn't happen on TV, Sid ate a clean pinfall to Sting at a house show on 2 July 1999 and a clean pinfall to Booker T. (!!) at a house show on 4 August 1999. It works that Sid, as an egotistical deluded heel, ignores all that, or any DQ losses, no contests, etc., but commentary should not be bleeding credibility by co-signing that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zendragon Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 Doesn't Bobby Heenan say something to the effect of "he beat up ten guys in the back" as justification for the streak? Also your idea that Norton should have had Rick Steiner's push is a great one 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted August 2 Author Share Posted August 2 (edited) Thunder Interlude – show number seventy-six – 19 August 1999 "The WCW Gang puts a Rey Misterio Jr. match on my Dirt Worst list...Ah, WCW in 1999" Trying to squeeze in a Thunder on another busy day… Tenay at least says that he’s not bothering to look at the actual record because Sid is too volatile to challenge on his claimed record…That’s a much better way to approach things for commentary…Silver King is wrestling Psicosis…Please do not send Sid out here…I’m sure it’s going to happen…Actually, I find that expecting Sid to come out has already sort of ruined this match because I’m not getting invested in the opening…I love Psicosis, but sometimes he insists on hitting immersion breaking spots…If your opponent hangs themselves on the ropes and could easily wriggle away, but has to wait a good fifteen seconds, just looking at you, while you climb up top to drop a leg on them, maybe the spot isn’t very good after all… Silver King catches Psicosis coming through the ropes and controls the bout…He gets two on a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker and physically threatens ref Billy Silverman…In a favored spot for the heels in the back, Psicosis sneaks two on a sunset flip, and King gets up and mows him down with a lariat…King tries a double springboard on a moonsault, but whiffs…Here’s Sid…I’ve stopped paying attention…Just imagine what comes next; you can probably figure it out yourselves… When does Goldberg fuck up Sid’s car?...That’s the only thing I want to see when it comes to this Sid/Goldberg feud… It’s Al Green…I wonder if he’s so tired of bein’ a jabrone…Dean Malenko’s music hits, but it’s Shane Douglas who comes to the ring…Over the past three months, both Chris Benoit and Shane Douglas have used Dean Malenko’s theme…I know Turner didn’t slash Bischoff’s budget that damn much…Douglas came into the company doing lukewarm worked-shoot promos and has been absolutely mediocre in the ring so far…This match is what it is…Douglas hits a pretty nasty-looking neck snap…He lands a stalling vertical…Decent offense from the Franchise for the first time in this WCW run…He tries to post Green with an atomic drop, but Green refuses to let his crotch anywhere near the post, so it looks awful…This was longer than it needed to be…Green got more offense than was necessary…Douglas reverses a suplex into a gutbuster, then lands a Pittsburgh Plunge for three… Gene Okerlund cuts an interview with, ugh, Rick Steiner…Steiner attempts to make complete sentences…It goes poorly…Okerlund claims that the Revolution has been challenging Steiner…When did that happen?...Steiner keeps calling himself THE DFG…He’s tossing catchphrases and nicknames out every week, and they all stink…Steiner opens his jacket and has a t-shirt on that says BITE ME…It’s a shirt from some burger joint promoting its food…This guy is a fucking tool…There’s a standing challenge out from him to any Revolution member for his TV title… Promo: Glacier has been repackaged as Coach Buzz Stern…This little sketch introducing his character has me already wanting him to go back to being comedic Glacier and failing to back up Norman Smiley… Bobby Blaze, Adrian Byrd, and Dave Burkhead are some Power Plant guys…They face the trio of Lord Steven Regal, Dave Taylor, and Chris Adams…What if, instead of having cruiserweights wrestle matches to nowhere against one another, you put a few of them into trios that can tag up sometimes?...Tenay talks about a Nitro segment where Crush got in a limo with a KISS license plate…We saw nothing of the sort on the Network edit of the episode… The British vets steamroll the Power Plant pukes…Regal makes the most of a Bobby Blaze sunset flip…He grabs his partners for leverage and frantically scratches for safety after Charles Robinson kicks his leverage away…His attempt to avoid being sunset flipped was akin to Wile E. Coyote trying to scramble back onto the ledge after realizing that he’s run into thin air…There’s always something enjoyable about a Regal match…This squash is entirely too long, but it was probably worth it for that spot…Unless, like, Sid ends up coming out and destroying six guys…And I am not kidding, here comes Sid and Rick Steiner…Oh man, this “fake win streak” angle SUCKS…It’s now reached the point where it’s the wrestler run-in version of Bischoff re-telling Tonight Show jokes… The Revolution comes to the ring…I just don’t think this shooty-bang stuff works when Shane Douglas is trying to meld it with a classic babyface promo style…I'm not sure that Shane Douglas, the guy who should be the primary talker for this group, is even the best talker in it…Saturn accepts Rick Steiner’s challenge… Blipmos: They keep hyping a world premiere for a WTR music video on Nitro…*vomits*… Lenny Lane and Lodi come to the ring…Wait, I guess Lenny lost his last name here on the chyron…And Billy Kidman still hasn’t been given his on the chyron…Lodi’s signs are all comedic misses…Lane’s getting another shot at Rey Misterio Jr. and the Cruiserweight Championship…I love Rey, but that belt might as well not exist…It hasn’t been centered in Rey’s feuds since the early part of the year…Lenny grabs a mic and starts to talk, but Rey takes the mic away and says, essentially: You and Lodi should go buttfuck each other like the GAYS do, you weird gay dudes…Now, that’s not a babyface thing to say!...1999 was, in many ways, a mess of a year… Lodi gets sent to the back before the match by the ref...They do some gay panic spots to start…I think I’ve checked out…Lenny uses his power advantage to score a couple of two counts…Mostly, this match sucks…Rey scores a sunset flip for two…Quick, guess what Lane does next!...Maybe vary up that spot somehow, heel workers in WCW?...The thing is, there’s a good match lost in the middle of Lane’s shitty Goldust impression with some of these spots…If those spots had been excised from this match, I think I would have enjoyed it…If you’re going to do shtick, it had better be clever or funny…Ernest Miller knows how to do shtick…Lenny Lane decidedly does not... Rey eats a ton of offense from a guy who has been booked as a non-threat for the past couple of months…Lane rubs his ass on Johnny Boone’s junk, so Boone is too busy, uh, wiping his dick off through his pants to keep paying attention?...That allows Lodi to run out, but his interference misfires…Then they do that shitty “hang there on the ropes, obviously on purpose, so the babyface can land a legdrop” spot…Also, Rey does a Bronco Buster in there…He also drop toeholds Lodi into Lane’s crotch *sigh*… Lane actually wins the Cruiserweight belt when Rey rolls Lane up, but Lane powers out and knocks Rey into Lodi on the apron…Lane scores his own rollup for three…This is fucking staggering…You put the belt on a guy who you have telegraphed no one should take seriously after sticking it on Rey for five months and ignoring it for feud purposes…Awful pre-match mic work, bad match full of dumb comedy spots, baffling booking, truly the dirt worst… Horace Hogan and Scott Norton are getting a two-on-two shot at Harlem Heat’s tag titles this show…Now, I was listening to the 83 Weeks about Road Wild ’99 the other day, and Conrad spoiled that Harlem Heat is going to do a back-and-forth set of title switches with the WTR…*vomits*…As bad as this on-again, off-again Stevie/Booker feud will get later on, I do think that there’s something good about the overall character work in the storyline…Stevie was definitely jealous of Booker’s singles success, something that Stevie could never duplicate…But at the same time, he genuinely also missed tagging with his brother…Harlem Heat was both an entity that he relied on for personal success and also one he genuinely valued…He was hurt by Booker seeming not to feel the same way about it…That was kinda complex stuff, emotion-wise…Brothers, man… Booker and Norton start off…Booker lands a roundhouse kick, gets slammed, and slams Norton twice in turn after Norton misses a corner charge…Stevie hits a clothesline, slams Horace, and is in control until Norton can gouge his eye…We get an early break…Back from break, and Booker is the one in trouble in the ring rather than Stevie…Blergh… Back from break, Booker escapes a Horace whip, but after hitting an axe kick and a Spinaroonie, Norton jumps in and levels him…Norton lands elbows and a double thrust to the throat on Booker in the ring…Horace tags in and switches things up by hitting a back elbow on Booker after Booker gets two on a sunset flip…I’ve highlighted it this show, but WCW wrestlers love the hell out of that spot as a hope spot leading into a cut-off…WCW has a definite house style, including double-FIP segments with each babyface tag partner in tag matches, flash pinfall hope spots that get cut off at least once or twice, etc…. Booker gets two on a crossbody to Horace, but can’t capitalize…Norton tags in and gets rolled up for two, but Booker again can’t capitalize…Book is able to duck a double-clothesline from the B-Teamers and hit one of his own…A disoriented Booker is able to find Stevie for the hot tag…The match breaks down…Booker controls Norton outside the ring…Horace gets the best of Stevie, but Booker disposes of Norton by tossing him into the guardrail, then catches Horace with a missile dropkick back in the ring after Stevie drops down on a rope run…That was a pretty good match, but man, that commercial break being placed where it was bums me out… Gene Okerlund interviews the First Family in the ring…Jimmy Hart has been underutilized on television lately, so I’m glad to see him getting a bit of time…Though after he’s done talking, it goes way the fuck downhill…Eurgh…Anyway, the First Family wants to take the tag titles from Harlem Heat…Brian Knobbs and Hugh Morrus challenge the Heat to a tag title match on the next Thunder…They’re also not fans of the Revolution… Rick Steiner defends the TV title against Perry Saturn in the main event…They keep letting this bum talk…He can barely say, “It looks like it’s gonna be a massacre” before the match…Rick is awful, man…At least Stevie Ray is funny and has entertaining facial expressions…Rick Steiner is the lesser tag team member of his former team, but he can’t even fucking talk or emote, either…I’m higher on Saturn than I guess the DVDVR/PWO set usually is, so it means something when I say that this match isn’t all that great…And it ain’t because of Saturn… Saturn hits a short burst of offense after Steiner’s opening boring work…Steiner does one cool thing…He sits Saturn up top as if readying for a back suplex, but goes back to back with him and lifts him over his shoulder, then hits an Oklahoma Stampede…It would have been way better if it were Dr. Death doing it, as Dr. Death actually knows how to run with a guy hanging over his shoulder, but it was still a neat setup for the move… There’s a break after Steiner tosses Saturn around at ringside…We come back to punches and eye gouges…Saturn tries to come back, but gets kicked in the gut and DDT’d for two…Steiner is a former shoot wrestler, but he somehow works the weakest-looking wrestling holds in the company…Saturn hits a neckbreaker to escape one…He ducks a clothesline and nails a superkick, then hits a nice release overhead suplex for two…Saturn seems to be coasting to victory, so here comes Sid to shove Saturn off the top rope and into a Steiner belly-to-belly… Chris Benoit hits the ring and whips his U.S. title belt at the escaping heels…I can’t believe it, but Benoit is currently the best talker in the Revolution…He cuts a solid little promo, and the long and short of it is that he and Saturn challenge Rick Steiner and Sid to a tag match on the next Thunder…Sid responds by basically doing the “too small” hand signal that a power forward does after easily scoring in the post, but in verbal form, and agrees…The heels rush the ring and have no luck, so they back off again…That’s the show… This show was very bad!...Harlem Heat/B-Teamers was the only good thing about this show…And my goodness, Rey/Lenny Lane was an abomination…OWWWWWWWWW… Edited August 2 by SirSmUgly 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted August 3 Author Share Posted August 3 Show #203 – 23 August 1999 “The one where WCW tries to kill their fanbase in Las Vegas, in Nevada, in the United States, on Earth, in the Milky Way, etc., etc.” OK, this SummerSlam ad played again, and I caught the date. It’s tomorrow. That’s a little early in August for that show, ain’t it? Anyway, let’s Nitro! We get the a more traditional open to the show: Recap of last week/WCW logo/title sequence, all in that order. No title sequence fifty-five minutes in this week! Mikey Whipwreck is still in the company. It seems that he outlasted Hak and Chastity even though the latter were actually over as a midcard act. His opponent: Chase Tatum, who is no longer a No Limit Soldier. He’s about to leave the company, too. This is his last TV match or close to it. Tatum visually reminds me of the stripper who told Dee Reynolds that she was his “rock bottom” on Always Sunny. Tatum isn’t any good, but Whipwreck at least gets something watchable out of him by fighting up from underneath. There must be audio issues because I don’t hear any commentary for a chunk of the match; that (sadly) improved things. Sid comes down and kills these dudes. Charles Robinson is out to help count his “wins.” Sid talks about Goldberg. Fin. Billy Kidman and Kimberly awkwardly talk over one another backstage. Kidman apologizes for what he said last week and intimates that he’s got his eye on one of the other ladies, heh heh heh, Kim’s cool with it and says that she’s going to try and cool Page down. Figuratively, not literally. No, wait, I guess literally, since body heat does rise with extreme anger. Goldberg comes across DDP and the Jersey Triad backstage and they get into it because why the hell not? In fact, Goldberg and DDP should have some unfinished business from back in April that it might be interesting for them to go ahead and finish. Tony S. gets his wires crossed and says that Page was attacking Kidman backstage as the Jersey Triad comes to the ring. They do some mediocre-verging-on-bad mic work. Mostly, that’s because DDP is right behind Rick Steiner in trying to establish catchphrases that don’t work for him. I can’t say “don’t work at all” because Booker T. got one of Page’s catchphrases over. Page threatens both Kidman and Goldberg and challenges the latter to a match later tonight. Sting hits the ring to talk. We’re sixteen minutes in and have had one match that was a Sid Special. Sting starts by saying, and I swear to fuck I’m not lying, this: STIZZING IN THA HIZZOUSE. OK, I’m out. While I daydream about other things, Sting acts like a dork and tries to get BACK IN BLACK over. Wait, hold on, I’m back; here comes Lex Luger. I see my hunch was correct! Lex and Sting hug while I am annoyed that I can hear production cues underneath the primary audio. Fucking WCW. Luger gets a mic and reiterates his long, close friendship with Sting through thick and thin. He’s here to support Sting, but he’s also here to warn Sting that maybe Hulk Hogan is on some secret heel bullshit. In general, he is correct. Luger tells Sting not to trust Hulk, but Sting is reluctant to mistrust Hulk. At least publicly at this moment. Luger wishes Sting luck and shakes his hand, but you know, I think Luger put an inkling of doubt into Sting’s mind, which we all are about to appreciate him for. Mike Tenay ambushes Eric Bischoff as Bisch arrives at the show and asks if he’s going to be the new (on-screen) WCW President. Bisch blows him off, but I have an answer from the future: HAHAHAHA NOPE! The Cat’s music hits as Tenay is still talking to Bischoff outside, so I scramble to mute the audio. Ah, there we go, the correct theme. Ernest Miller is down here with Sonny Onoo, fresh off of punching Buff Bagwell in the face for going to Kevin Nash and getting the finish of their Road Wild match changed. He in fact says that he beat the hell out of Buff at Road Wild, but Buff’s still delusional about it, so he’s challenging Buff to another fight tonight. Babyface Buff Bagwell is nearly unwatchable; the guy is complete ass. His mom is pretty entertaining, though. They have a straight wrestling match instead of Miller doing a bunch of entertaining (to me, at least) shtick to trigger a bunch of cornball bikers. Buff wins a dropkick off a rope run and the Cat bails. Miller jaws at the crowd until Buff goes out and dumps him back in the ring, but the Cat hits a kick soon afterward and takes over. He lands a Moonwalk Elbow, which I think is where he ends up on the whole “signature elbowdrop” deal. He tries another one and misses, which sparks a Bagwell comeback. A Buff neckbreaker and splash scores a two count; Buff tries to press the offense and Miller forearms him in the junk, then tosses him outside so that Sonny Onoo can stomp him. Lex Luger comes back out to back Onoo off, which distracts the Cat and allows Buff to land a quick Blockbuster for three. Totally Buff does the opposite of pre-exploding! Promo: Berlyn arrives in a week, and we’re all just going to pretend that we’ve never seen the guy before. I love the ‘90s font style and graphics they use in this video to spell Berlyn’s name. Kanyon seconds Diamond Dallas Page to the ring for that impromptu match against Goldberg. Page is Goldberg’s best opponent in my opinion, so I have expectations for this match which probably aren’t fair, actually. Page does some pre-match mic work for some fucking reason. Goldberg comes down to his WWE theme because I guess someone got all fidgety about “Crush ‘Em.” The Network is inconsistent about themes in a few places. Bam Bam Bigelow runs up from behind and clocks Goldberg with something, but Goldberg chooses to attack Page and Kanyon rather than Bam Bam. This is a handicap match, I guess. Goldberg spears Kanyon, who takes a wild bump and folds himself in half like an accordion, then spears a charging Bam Bam before DDP runs away. Goldberg tells the camera that he plans on fucking up Page’s world on the next Nitro. He eventually enters the ring, gets a mic, and lets the crowd know what he said to the audience at home into the camera. It was pretty badass, if you wanted to know, but ultimately, we didn't get the match that we were teased. The WTR have a music video set to their Jimmy Hart-penned theme. MUTE. Some weird kid stands around with some plants-slash-regular ham ‘n eggers who chant for Lodi in a tent. They have a Lodi party and then a masked guy shows up and there’s a food fight. What is happening right now? Guess who finds it safer to hop off the stage rather than walk down the ramp? That’s right: Juventud Guerrera. That fucking ramp. Juvi’s getting a shot at Lenny Lane (w/Lodi) and the Cruiserweight Championship. Juvi shakes his ass. Lenny applauds it. Juvi is enraged. Welp. Look, here we go, here’s the match: It’s shitty “comedy” spots interspersed with some decent fast-paced wrestling. Honestly, I stopped caring like two seconds in. I will say that Lane hits a wild somersault splash that he sorta overshoots on Juvi and Lodi at ringside. Lane’s definitely upped his game to a level I didn’t know he had since that first Rey Misterio Jr. match last Nitro. Lane rips off two shoulderblocks and a powerslam; that’s a neat spot for a larger base against the cruiserweights to use. Maybe there’s something there, talent-wise, but WCW was a mess, and he apparently never unlocked it entirely. Juvi eats a lot of offense from Lane and a bit of offense from Lodi, including a nice sit-out powerbomb for two. Lane misses a corner charge and takes a Psicosis bump, maybe distracted by the homophobic chants of the crowd in kayfabe. Juvi gets two on an awkward sunset flip bomb and then, MOTHER FUCKER, it’s FUCKING SID. FUCK OFF, WCW. This match got decent when it became a straight-up wrestling match. Anyway, WCW is trying to make me despise Sid, but I despise Kevin Nash’s shitty booking instead. Nothing like Sid destroying your Cruiserweight Champ and his former Cruiserweight Champ opponent to make that Cruiserweight division feel oh so special! Sid yammers on as we go to break. This mother fucker is STILL talking when we get back from break. Why is Charles Robinson stanning Sid instead of Ric Flair now? Oh, who cares. This angle fucking SUCKS. I actually think the idea is pretty good, but the execution is complete garbage. Sid’s an underrated talker, but he is doing WAY the fuck too much talking lately. No need for him to cut a promo every time he ruins a match. Instead of whatever dub the Network sometimes uses for Sid’s theme, they should have used his Sycho Sid theme for dubbing. HOLY SHIT, now there’s a live performance of the fucking WTR song. FUCK YOU, WCW. I don’t need any luck to get through Russo-led WCW. I feel confident that Bischoff-and-Nash WCW has prepped me for Russo WCW. It’s going to get dumb and bad and shitty, I know, but this past year-plus has been dumb and bad and shitty, mostly. Brian Knobbs, Hugh Morrus, and Barbarian work a trios tag against Shane Douglas, Perry Saturn, and Dean Malenko. No offense to these guys, but I like Saturn a whole lot and I like Barb quite a bit, even though his work sort of slid off a cliff after 1997. After that, I could leave all these fellas to the side. That includes Dean Malenko, who secretly became total shit after the Chris Jericho feud. Barb does a nice chop and everybody moves with pace except for Brian Knobbs, so there’s that. Malenko is FIP, but gets a boot up on Knobbs’s second-rope splash, which he uses as a finisher. Saturn hits the hot tag and cleans house; the match breaks down shortly after. Saturn handles Knobbs, but Rick Steiner runs down and hits a diving bulldog while Saturn signals for the DVD. The ref turns around to see Knobbs splash a prone Saturn for three. Chris Benoit runs down and challenges Steiner to a U.S. Championship match right now. That Revolution catchphrase is fucking STUPID, by the way. What in the fuck is OUT WITH EVOLUTION, IN WITH REVOLUTION supposed to mean? Idiotic. I don’t like the Revolution as a concept or a going concern. Hype video: It’s this same Berlyn video. Let’s hurry up and have Duggan kill him off so we can get the Boogie Knights back together. The Insane Clown Posse (w/Vampiro) comes to the ring. Whither art thou, Raven? Aw, so long, buddy; your 1997/98 up through Fall Brawl was fantastic. The Raven/Saturn tag team in 1999 ruled, too. Rey Misterio Jr. and Billy Kidman are their opponents. I love Shaggy’s whiffed lariat. It looks terrible, but in such a hilarious way that I can’t be mad. Then he goes and takes a nice running flip bump into the guardrail. Rey and Kidman dominate Shaggy, who manages a clothesline and gets a tag before Rey and Kidman beat up Violent J instead. J lands a clothesline of his own and Kidman is FIP for a little bit. Wait, no, not even that long. Shaggy tags back in and almost immediately eats a rebound clothesline and a springboard dropkick. Rey hits a Bronco Buster on Shaggy, so J jumps him and then hits a nice press slam onto Shaggy’s outstretched knee. Shaggy lands a guillotine legdrop, but only gets two, and then J is a bit out of place for a Rey dive, and as the ref checks on them, Vampiro gets in, stops a Kidman SSP, but then hits Shaggy with a lariat instead. Kidman covers, barely gets three as Shaggy kicks out right at the third slap of the mat, and then gets stomped by the heels for a bit before Eddy Guerrero runs them off. Gene Okerlund is in the ring to interview Hulk Hogan. Fine, let’s get this done and dusted. I don’t know, Hulk says his son saw Luger out here and called his dipshit dad to see if he was going to turn heel again, but he’s definitely not and Sting is totes his friend. Totes. Let’s see if Chris Benoit can get something good out of this absolute fucking bum Rick Steiner. The answer is that he gets something solid, but it’s ninety, ninety-five percent him. Great selling, good intensity, vicious strikes as always. He chops the shit out of Steiner after hopping onto the apron, in particular. Steiner’s trying to incorporate something cool like that Oklahoma Stampede, but it’s not a great Oklahoma Stampede. He also takes entirely too much of this match. Benoit explodes into a comeback with German suplexes, then goes up and tries a diving headbutt. Steiner yanks Charles Robinson on top of him; Lil’ Naitch takes the brunt of the blow. Steiner grabs the U.S. title and plans to use it, but Saturn runs in the ring and jumps him. Sid comes down to jump Saturn. Saturn gets powerbombed, and the heels leave before Benoit gets back up and comes after them. Benoit cuts a more typical-for-him crappy promo in which he reiterates the challenge he made on the previous Thunder. Please stop chanting REVOLUTION, Benoit. Please. If we were playing EWR, a certain someone would have triggered a notification that he was used too much on this show. Speaking of “used too much on this show,” here come the WTR's, also known as the West Texas (Let’s See What’s On) RAW’s. They (Barry and Kendall) are facing Harlem Heat, and if we’re getting a stupid-ass tag title switch for no good reason, let’s just do it. I’m irate about Booker T.’s booking in 1999. Fucking terrible. I thought he was friends with Kevin Nash? Booker actually helps make Kendall Windham look like he has a little talent in the opening sequence, but even though Harlem Heat looks like they’re going to roll, they run into trouble. Stevie is FIP, but for a very short period. The match breaks down after the hot tag, and Booker lands an axe kick and a missile dropkick on Kendall for a visual three, but the ref is distracted. Hennig hits Booker in the back of the head with the cowbell and Kendall covers for three. Truly some WCW-ass nonsense. They’ve ramped up the Berlyn promo stuff just for it to get blown up by that worthless sack of crap Jim Duggan. At least get me a new promo package if you're going to run Berlyn promos multiple times in the show. Vampiro comes to the ring to face Eddy Guerrero while Tony S. announces a new Nitro Girl search. Let’s see if that actually comes off or not. Vampiro attacks Eddy with strikes and a pretty sick belly-to-belly that launches the hell out of the guy, actually. Vamp misses a corner charge and Eddy hits some sick strikes of his own. He sticks Vamp with a back elbow for two and follows up with a snap suplex and some punches. Las Vegas is bored or tired or something, and Eddy tries to fire them up. They are barely responsive. WCW is trying to kill Las Vegas as a town, and they might be doing a decent job at it. They wander around outside the ring for a bit; Eddy puts Vampiro back in the ring, then has a slightly awkward series of counters that end with Vampiro putting a boot into Eddy’s chest. These guys feel slightly off sometimes, but for the most part, this is a perfectly decent match. Vamp goes up, gets caught, and gets taken to them at with a superplex. Eddy goes up for a Frog Splash, and ICP walks down to ringside, so Eddy splashes them instead. Yikes, he and Shaggy clashed shins. I know that shit hurt. Vampiro takes over when Eddy makes it back to the ring. Where are Rey and Kidman? It’s dumb that the heels always show up at ringside, but the babyfaces are just chilling in the back until it’s too late. Oh yeah, it’s too late: By the time Rey and Kidman show up, Eddy has already lost the match after clashing heads with Shaggy. Holy cow, this show has had a bunch of garbage finishes and shitty match layouts. It’s incredible. Again, this feels like a Russo show even before Russo even showed up. You know, if Sting actually does turn heel here, it’s going to be pretty incredible that the guy who is an unshakeable number two babyface in the crowd’s pecking order behind Goldberg will be making an ill-advised heel turn when Hulk Hogan suddenly turns babyface. Michael Buffer makes a boatload of cash to introduce Sting and the Hulkster. They can’t resolve a collar-and-elbow and get heated. Hogan gets a hammerlock; Sting gets the ropes. Just get to the twisty-turny stuff already. Hogan is cooked and also takes too much of these matches. They deadlock on a couple of shoulderblocks, so Hogan ties up and slips in a roll-up for two. There’s a Greco-Roman knuckle lock. Hogan wins it and tries to transition into an arm wringer, but Sting gets a sloppy small package for two. Hogan controls the next lockup and hits knees and a running lariat for two. He lands an AXE BOMBAH~ and a back suplex for two more. He looks for another lariat, but Sting ducks it and hits one of his own. Sting lands a few punches in the corner and then a back rake, which is a heel Hogan move. Then again, it’s a babyface Hogan move because Hogan is an inherently bad kayfabe character. Sting tries an elbow drop, but Hogan fires up. Hogan hits a very weak boot to Sting’s midsection before tossing him to the floor so we can have a lukewarm obligatory ringside brawl. We finally make it back to the ring, where Hogan drops an elbow for two. He ducks down after shooting Sting into the ropes and gets kicked. Sting follows up and lands a second-rope splash, Vader-style, for two before going to a chinlock. It’s a long chinlock spot. Hogan eventually fires up again, hits a face crusher, and punches Sting a ton before hitting a big boot. He goes for the legdrop, but Sting moves and then lands a Stinger Splash when Hogan gets in the corner. He tries a second one, jumps into a boot, and tries a third one and misses entirely. Hogan does his stupid wind-up punch, and that’s when *sigh* Sid Vicious and Rick Steiner run in. These two guys are just being driven into unwatchability, at least Sid; Rick Steiner was pretty much already at that point. I’m baffled why Rick's being pushed this much and getting this much airtime. Goldberg and Luger run in for the save. Hogan promises Sting another title shot. Even though I'm glad that the Network excised the KISS performance, ultimately, there's no other conclusion to come to: This episode was some bullshit. -25 out of 5 Stinger Splashes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zendragon Posted August 3 Share Posted August 3 Regarding Russo's WCW How close are we to the Lenny Lane phantom title loss 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stefanie Sparkleface Posted August 3 Share Posted August 3 7 hours ago, SirSmUgly said: OK, this SummerSlam ad played again, and I caught the date. It’s tomorrow. That’s a little early in August for that show, ain’t it? It was on August 3 in 1997 as well. If you really want a weird SummerSlam date, a couple of years ago it was on July 30. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted August 3 Author Share Posted August 3 2 hours ago, Stefanie Sparkleface said: It was on August 3 in 1997 as well. If you really want a weird SummerSlam date, a couple of years ago it was on July 30. Huh, I went back and looked up Hart and Soul and ended up in a Wikipedia rabbit hole. It's because WWF wanted to have Canadian Stampede during the week of the actual Calgary Stampede, which is in early July, so they shifted the PPVs around that show accordingly. I would guess that something similar happened this year, but I have no idea what WWE's PLE schedule is now outside of the big three. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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